Auditory-perceptual voice characteristics in pre-operative patients undergoing thyroid or parathyroid surgery.

OBJECTIVES

To systematically evaluate auditory perceptual voice characteristics in people with thyroid disease prior to undergoing thyroid surgery.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

This study examined the auditory perceptual voice characteristics of 96 individuals with thyroid disease. Participants were categorised by type of thyroid disease (i.e. multinodular goitre, thyroid cancer, thyroid nodule, toxicity or parathyroidism) and by status of compression (i.e. compression versus no compression). Auditory perceptual voice ratings were made on samples of connected speech by using the Perceptual Voice Profile.

RESULTS

A high prevalence of participants had deviant auditory perceptual voice features; however, the majority of these abnormalities were slight to mild in severity and only 8% of participants had a clinically significant auditory perceptual abnormality. There was no significant difference in features between diagnostic categories, and only high pitch was rated as more significantly deviant in patients without compression versus those with compression.

CONCLUSIONS

This study supports the need for auditory-perceptual ratings to be included as part of pre-operative multidimensional assessment of voice in patients with thyroid disease.